Chapter 21 Decisions

Inside the castle of the city of Ether, A black figure sat on a broken throne he had red eyes and purple scars. His soul was darker than black. The aura around him was one of death, agony and chaos. The broken throne was generating dark energy which was moving to his soul.

The throne on which Lucifer sat was a celestial item, they were capable of generating essence in their complete state they would generate light essence and in their incomplete state, they would generate dark essence. The throne was the same throne on which Lucifer used to sit when he was human. After he reached level 10 he knew levelling up by consuming another ghost won't be possible, so he started changing the city of Ether to its old form. He issued an order via Karl to turn it into dark land. He drove the narrative that the ghosts were more in numbers so it would be better to turn the place into dark land rather than keeping it a mediocre zone.

The reason the city of Ether was a medical zone it was a ghost city so when Lucifer captured it the city was a dark land. To make it livable Lucifer installed various light stones and spread his light essence all around the city and made it a mediocre zone. But now as he was a ghost he turned it back into its original form.

He was stabilizing his essence to make it more effective, in simple terms he was improving the quality of his soul. There are three aspects of power in ghosts. The first aspect is their level the higher the level the more essence they would have. The second aspect was the quality of soul the better the quality the better defense they would have. The third aspect was of their will, unlike the other two power of will cannot be changed by external factors. When something big changes in consciousness only then the will would change. The power of will is useful while consuming ghosts of lower levels, the more easily you discard their wills the more control you would have on new energy. The power of will is also useful while defending consciousness from hallucination, hypnotism and conscious attacks.

Lucifer had the strongest will due to his conviction of his dream where he was ready to sacrifice all just to attempt for it. The quantity of his essence was also good but the quality of his soul was very weak. The reason for that was that he was a new ghost and hence his quality was only at a basic level.

Taro and Shawn grew suspicious when they saw that the City of Ether was turning into a land of ghosts but then they remembered how Lucifer sacrificed the whole land of Oden just to have an edge in his battle with them.

"Should we go and check his chambers?" asked Shawn.

"I want to, but I'm getting this feeling that nothing good would come out of it," said Taro.

"That means it won't be good for us. Do you think he would turn into a ghost?"

"I don't think so, he would wake up as a very weak ghost. He would have a strong will though due to his sacrifice but I don't think the quality or his level would be that good," said Taro.

"Yes, But What if he knows a loophole? That Karl was as strong as me," asked Shawn.

"That might be possible, Quantity can be increased till level 10 easily, but for quality. What do you think he would do?" asked Taro.

"We need to find that out. I'm sneaking into his chambers. I will send a will in case I get trapped." said Shawn.

Taro looked at Shawn and then passed a ton of his essence to him and said "Use it if you get trapped with that you will be able to escape quickly."

"Thank you, I hope he is a ghost now. That way we would have a shot at reaching round 2" said Shawn

"Me too," said Taro with a smile.

Shawn used his powers and used his essence to turn his soul into that of Karl. After that, he floated towards the chambers of Lucifer. The closer he got the more powerless he felt. Even when he met Sword King he did not feel this much pressure. It was as if he was moving into an endless void and slowly it was eating away parts of him. The pressure was making him lose his concentration and his real form was getting leaked for a few seconds due to it.

To stop that he started using essence which he received from Taro to fight the pressure and used his essence to keep his appearance. Soon, he reached the doors. He tried to enter them with stealth. However, as he touched them he got sucked into them and got chained by various whips made of dark matter. His soul was sealed, he looked at the throne and saw Lucifer, his very sight sent shivers down his consciousness. His whole being started vibrating as if it came in contact with something amiss.

"Yoooou..."

Lucifer looked at Shawn and asked, "How did I reach level 14, Is that what you're asking?"

"Yes," said Shawn.

Lucifer clapped his hands and the whips unsealed Shawn's soul he fell to the ground. He looked at Lucifer with surprise when he got chained he felt a dread and because of that, he thought he would get consumed.

"It's a trick to scare the enemies. I'm only level 7 right now I'm using celestial objects to increase the level," said Lucifer.

"Oh, okay."

"Go and call Taro, I wanted to describe strategy with him. We need to bring whoever wins the war in this chamber," said Lucifer.

"As you command."

Soon, Taro reached the doors, he too was nervous. But he trusted Shawn and so he and Shawn tried to enter through the door. However, both of them got sucked and then got sealed just like Shawn got sealed last time. A will entered Shawn's mind. He quickly tried to defend but it just ate his latest memory and perished.

Taro saw Lucifer and lost all hope, he looked like a demon. The smell, the aura everything was way ahead of his imagination. He looked like the pinnacle. And then he saw Lucifer's vicious smile and his soul shivered as a body getting strangled. He started feeling pain, agony, and emptiness. Every part of his consciousness was getting destroyed every part of his soul was getting consumed, and every part of his being was now getting slowly lost.